To Sit With What Is :: A New Year’s Surrender

There is something delicious about standing at the edge of a new year! It feels like starting a brand new sketchbook (oh the possibilities!), or casting on a new fair isle project (the colors, designs and so many knits & purls to look forward to!), or setting out fabric scraps with an eye to what could be collaged and stitched into a lovely fragment. It is also encouraging to look back over the year, scroll back through one’s Instagram feed, and see the making, remember the incredible times of drawing, knitting, stitching, writing. Closing out a year and turning my face to another is wonderful indeed!

It is also overwhelming. The above photograph is a current picture of the many ways my creative head and heart walk through life. The older I become the more I realize this is how I deal with life, this is how I work through all that life brings to me, the pretty and the painful and everything in between. If I gaze out into 2018 for too long, I want to walk a step or two backwards, look away and just sit down. I think I can certainly do that for a moment, for a day at least. Perhaps even for good.

Last year I began the year with the words Slow & Simplify. I wanted them to guide me, to define or focus my intention about moving through the year. It was lovely to carry those words with me, even in the midst of not-at-all slow times and ever-so-not simple ones. There were places in the year, more than I would have liked, that I wished I had not chosen those words, for it seemed that Life was out to contradict them in every way possible. But towards the end of 2017, even in those crazy final two months filled with holidaying, I came to realize a secret to being slow and simple in life…and that is to sit with what is. I’m pretty certain I’ve heard this phrase from Susan Piver whose meditation guidance has helped me so very much over the last few years. I resumed this practice late in the autumn and it continues to root me in my personal life and in my creative life. To sit with what is is not a giving up of dreams and goals. It is not a curl up under the covers, pull the wool over one’s eyes way of life. Rather it is a strong-backed, head up, soft-bellied breathing into whatever is going on in one’s life. It is a way of sitting down and facing whatever is in one’s lap at the moment. For me, this helps me both with what is in my lap in life at the moment AND what is in my lap creatively. Is life going at warp speed at the moment? Ok, sit with that. Be all there breathing into the blur. Is life complicated and confusing? Ok then…sit with that and breathe space into the craziness.

I don’t know how this strikes you. You may not be like me. In fact, I hope you are not. You see, my default setting in life is to feel that I should and ought to be doing, being, making, creating something other than what I’m currently doing, being, making, or creating. Call it driven, call it striving, call it restlessness, call it passion, curiosity, or creative. It is hardwired into my being for reasons I may not fully comprehend. But there it is. Always striving to reach the next goal, check off the next thing on my to-do list, be everything I need to be for excellence in my personal life and in my work as an artist. That last sentence sounds exhausting. Even in a desire for Slow & Simple, it can become a measuring stick that beats me over the head when life isn’t either of them. To sit with what is, allows me to sink into my life, accepting it, breathing into it prayerfully, whether it is slow or busy, whether it is simple or complicated, whether it is pretty or painful, whether it seems productive or not, whether I am accomplishing anything or just running in circles. To sit with what is, allows me to be ok with whatever is in my lap at the moment, be it a sketchbook, or some knitting, or embroidery, or my writing journal. Any feelings of guilt, should-be, oughtta-be, wanna-be , can be let go of, breathing into the creative goodness at hand. Even when I’m being hounded by the be-better, do-more, do-other thoughts, I can just sit with that, breathe space around it, acknowledging that it is there, a part of who I am, but not something I have to give full attention to. It can just sit there, beside me, while I continue breathing, living, creating.

So this is my intention for 2018. To walk into the year bravely, courageously, and creatively opening my hands to whatever comes, whatever falls in my lap. To sit with it, breathe into it, and prayerfully let go of the striving and drivenness that may come with it. I will resist and let go of the inevitable desire to make “sitting with what is” my new measuring stick. Thanks be to God that there is now no condemnation for those who live in His love and grace. That’s where I want to be…sitting with what is true, good and beautiful.

Thank you so very much to all of you who continue to visit with me here, who read my words, who purchase and enjoy my art-making in all its various forms. You are so appreciated!! Here’s to 2018…a New Year filled with many stitches, sketches and inspirations!!

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6 thoughts on “To Sit With What Is :: A New Year’s Surrender”

Hi Jennifer, love following you! Our shared faith strikes a cord within me. You won’t believe (oh yes you will) but I just sat down at my computer with my sketch book and pencil ready to look up a recent photo I took of a junco and I saw your email and opened it….and what a surprise! You had painted one. I am on a sketching blog and their are so many that are far beyond me so the thoughts of doing this bird were a little overwhelming…until I saw yours. You simplified what I had in my head. I don’t have to draw with every detail, I just need to enjoy the process and learn for the next time. Thank you for your encouragement!

Hi Susan! I apologize for not responding sooner to your kind comment! Thank you for taking the time to read my posts and comment. I wish you all the best in your creative living and in sitting with whatever is going on in your life. -Jennifer

Dear Jennifer, I too have been greatly inspired by you for many reasons. I am a foreign wife living in the countryside of Japan which can sound fun, romantic and amazing but it can be lonely, isolating and frustrating. I also gravitate towards “art” in some way because I find a lot of comfort, personal enjoyment and enrichment in expressing myself that way. I crochet.

I’ve always wanted to learn how to sketch….I can barely draw stick-people! I came across your blog and was inspired at first because we seem to be similar in age….most creative blogs I have seen are written by younger people. While I love young people it was important to me personally to find someone my age to seek inspiration from.

Sitting with “what is”- beautiful. This reminds me of just accepting where God has me at the moment and being joyful and content in that.

Thank you for all the time and effort you put into your blog and YouTube videos you are such a great inspiration.

Dear Mrs. N – I apologize for not having responded sooner! Indeed I think I am having issues with responding to comments on my iPhone and it just isn’t getting posted! Now that I am on my computer, I can see that my response did not go through. But I wanted to thank you for taking the time to read my blog and to comment here. I am ever so glad these words are encouraging to you! I pray that your New Year is allowing for some creative time, and that you will be faithful in expressing the creativity God gave you. Many blessings to you in Japan! I hope you will take up your pen or pencil and sketch with abandon! Do you know about my ebook and video course called Discover Your Life Beautiful, One Drawing at a Time? It’s in my ETSY shop and is still, I think, on sale. It might be helpful to you in your journey to draw and sketch. Or just jump right in! Have a lovely day! -Jennifer

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